Police on Monday recommended indicting Israel’s former Prime Ninister Ehud Olmert for allegedly appointing acquaintances from Likud to a range of positions and granting them benefits in an improper manner, the Jerusalem Post reports.
The benefited individuals in the appointments case hail from a host of companies – including Bezeq, the Israel Postal Company, the Small Business Authority and the Labour Court – which Olmert had authority over during the period in question, police said.
“During the …

A man has been banned from getting drunk anywhere in England and Wales for the next seven years after a string of drunk and disorderly offences, the Telegraph reports.
David Peers, who is unemployed, was also ordered not to act abusively, enter public houses or carry open bottles of alcohol until 2016.
Fortunately, the guy still has three options: he can move move to Scotland, Northern Ireland, or outside the UK.

More than 259 vehicles were involved in a huge pile-up on Germany’s main autobahn that goes from Berlin to Dutch border.
More than 65 people were injured in the crash, including 10 who were still fighting for their lives yesterday, the Telegraph reports.
The crash – a series of three pile-ups on a 20-mile stretch – came on Sunday evening as holidaymakers headed on to German roads as the school holidays began, the report says.
The crash happened …

Some of the cheapest olive oil available, from discount supermarket chains Aldi and Lidl, have beaten well known brands in a blind tasting conducted by expert tasters, the Daily Telegraph reports.
In a study of 12 standard extra virgin olive oils available in supermarkets conducted by Which?, the consumer watchdog, oils from Marks & Spencer, Carapelli, Bertolli, Sainsbury’s and Felippo Berio were all trumped by Aldi and Lidl’s versions.
Both cost just £2.49 for a 750ml bottle, …

The BBC’s Newsnight programme made Freedom of Information requests to almost 100 local authorities in the UK to ask how many cameras they operate, and some of the results are quite astonishing – for example, the City of London has 68.7 cameras per 1,000 inhabitants.
The BBC say that The City of London has 619 cameras, but a population of only 9,000 – this represents 68.7 cameras per 1,000 people.
What is also remarkable is that the …

Some utter idiots have vandalised the 7th July London bombing attacks memorial in Hyde Park.
A “couple of words” were written with a black marker pen on one of its 52 steel pillars, a spokeswoman for the central London park told the BBC.
Staff responsible for the maintenance of the royal park are in the process of removing the graffiti.
Westminster City Council deputy leader Robert Davis said: “To choose to vandalise a memorial which is a tribute …

If the 2012 presidential election were held today, US President Barack Obama and possible Republican nominee Mitt Romney would be all tied up at 45% each, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
The President, seeking a second four-year term, beats another potential GOP rival, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, by six points – 48% to 42%.
In both match-ups, seven percent (7%) like some other candidate, with three percent (3%) undecided.
When Romney is the Republican …

Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos will tbe the first Spanish minister to visit the UK dependancy of Gibraltar since 1704 when the territory became British under the Treaty of Utrecht.
Moratinos is going to meet his British counterpart David Miliband and Gibraltar’s chief minister Peter Caruana tomorrow, Reuters reports.
Spain ceded Gibraltar to Britain under a treaty signed in 1704, but has long maintained the rocky peninsula should be returned to Spanish sovereignty. Gibraltar’s government wants …

Spaniard Jaime Alguersuari is going to be the youngest driver to participate in a Formula One Grand Prix in the history, when he makes his debut at the Hungaroring on Sunday, the Telegraph reports.
“I am aware that I’m facing a very tough challenge, because coming into Formula One is never easy, coming into Formula One in the middle of a season is even harder and doing so without any testing is really difficult,” 19-year-old Alguersuari, who …

Today 20 years ago the Apollo 11’s lunar module Eagle separated from the command module Columbia and started descending towards the surface of the Moon. Eagle landed on the Moon at 20:17 GMT (21:17 British Summer Time).
It was actually Buzz Aldrin who spoke the first words on the surface of the Moon. As the lunar module landed, Aldrin said: ”Contact light! Okay, engine stop. ACA – out of detent.”
Then Armstrong said the famous words, “Houston, Tranquility …

Historian AJ Morton believes that The Holy Grail – the goblet supposedly used by Jesus at the last supper – may have been taken to Kilwinning, a town in Ayrshire, Scotland, by the Knights Templar in the 14th century.
“Historians have been searching for a Templar haven where the members sheltered after their downfall,” Morton told The Sun. Several places have been pinpointed, but all of them are false. But Kilwinning and nearby Irvine had the highest concentration …

The UK Home Office lowered terror threat level from “severe” to “substantial”, the BBC reports.
The level was raised in 2007, meaning a terrorist attack was “highly likely”. The downgrading means there is a “strong possibility” of an attack, the report says.
Home Secretary Alan Johnson said there remained a “real and serious threat” from terrorists and the public would see little change in security measures.
The threat level was last at critical in June 2007, after an …

It seems that internet idiots have deleted the English-language Wikipedia article on Apollo 11 – on the day of 40th anniversary of the Moon landing.
On Monday, 20th July, at 10:41, this was how Wikipedia’s Apollo 11 article looked like (click on image to enlarge):

I hope the Wikipedia team will fix this and restore the original article as quickly as possible.

Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu issued a sharp response Sunday to United States pressure to stop Jews from building in parts of Jerusalem claimed by the Palestinian Authority. Israel’s sovereignty in Jerusalem is “not up for debate,” Netanyahu said, and Jews are permitted to build in any part of the capital city, as are Arabs, Arutz 7 reports.
“Imagine what would happen if Jews were forbidden to live or to buy apartments in certain parts of …

The former president of Iran, Mohammad Khatami, called for a referendum on the legitimacy of the government, following June’s disputed elections, the BBC reports.
Khatami said that millions of Iranians had lost faith in the electoral process. The Iranian opposition, including Khatami and the defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, say the election was rigged.
Only the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, can organise a referendum, but he has already declared the elections, won by the incumbent, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, …

Every family in Britain faces a £340-a-year tax raid after 2011 in order to pay for the pledge by both Labour and Tories to protect rises in Health Service spending, the Daily Mail reports.
Tax increases would be needed to reduce a 16 per cent cut in spending on other frontline services.
Thousands face £600 extra on council tax bills as homes are moved into higher bands.